IT WAS EARLY ON BOXING DAY 2004 when Peter Withe’s Indonesia side began to prepare for a training session in Jakarta’s morning sun. In just two days’ time Withe’s side were due to play the first leg of their semi-final in the Tiger Cup, the South-East Asian championship, against Malaysia and the former Aston Villa and England striker was keen to give his side a thorough workout.

The players and coaches were oblivious to the chaos engulfing Sumatra 1,000 miles to the west. Just minutes earlier, at 7.59am, the town of Banda Aceh had been virtually destroyed by a tsunami that would eventually claim more than 200,000 lives across Asia.

“We were too far south to feel anything,” Withe said. “The first I heard about it was when I got back to my apartment in Jakarta. It took a long time to get the full picture but gradually the enormity of it became clear.”

The shocking extent of the disaster that unfolded in the days after December 26 was almost too terrible to comprehend, with many of Withe’s side directly affected. “Two of the players and one of my coaches had relatives in the affected area. It took a long time for them to find out if their families were dead or alive,” he said. “Getting information was a nightmare.”

Withe, scorer of the only goal in Aston Villa’s European Cup triumph over Bayern Munich in 1982, lost friends in the disaster but knew that football could play a key role in lifting a nation united in grief.

Not surprisingly, Indonesia lost the home leg of their semi-final but overcame Malaysia 4-1 in Kuala Lumpur to set up a final against Singapore. “It was a huge occasion,” Withe said. “And although some of the players had obviously been through a lot, I stressed the importance of putting the disaster to the back of their minds and concentrating on their football.”

With 100,000 fans crammed into the stadium and many more locked out, Withe arranged for two huge screens to be erected outside the ground so that people could follow the action.

“They’re football daft over here and the atmosphere was incredible,” he said. “I think in the end, though, the pressure of the occasion was too much for us. We ended up losing 5-2 over the two matches but I think in a small way we’d helped put a smile back on people’s faces.”

As the country began its massive clean-up operation, Withe arranged a succession of charity matches aimed at raising funds for victims of the disaster. “There was a match at the start of March for which I managed to bring over the likes of Mark Walters, Phil Neal and Ronnie Whelan,” he said. “Careca and Dunga also played and it was a fantastic occasion.

“Later that month we played another fund-raising match in Perth after being approached by the Australian FA.”

Withe has also been involved a number of other projects aimed at rebuilding the areas shattered by the disaster. “A friend of mine from HSBC has been instrumental in the setting up of a portable hospital in Banda Aceh and Fifa are running a number of schemes aimed at rebuilding the infrastructure,” he said.

“My son Jason is also running a development programme in Phuket and I’ve flown over there to help run events for those who were either injured or lost someone in the tsunami.”

In between Withe has led his Indonesia side to fourth place in the recent Sea Games — a tournament that he won twice when manager of the Thailand national side — but despite recent successes, he knows, with two years left on his contract, that there is more to do.

“I was brought in to raise standards and improve levels of professionalism, which is happening,” he said. “The main problem is identifying players for the national side. There are 220 million people in Indonesia, so monitoring different players is extremely hard. Who knows what the future holds, but we’re getting there.”

The same could be said for the relief effort in a country that lost more than 100,000 people in the tsunami. Football, of course, can do only so much to relieve the suffering but Withe is doing all he can to make a difference.

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